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[Pages:17]MAX WEBER'S CONCEPTION OF COVENANT INANCIENT JUDAISM, WITH REFERENCE TO THE BOOK OF

JUDGES

Alan Mittleman

Max Weber provided an importantmethodological toolfor the modernstudyoftheJewishpolitical tradition:a predominantlysocio

political analysis of Israelite covenants. Yet in emphasizing a func tional analysis of covenanting, Weber problematized covenant as a

theologicalconcept.Arriving at an appropriatebalance ofpolitical

and theological elements in the analysis and interpretation of cov

enant is crucial to any adequate account of the Jewishpolitical

tradition. This essay offers an explication ofWeber's views, a contem

porarycritiqueof thembyJuliusGuttmann,whowas sensitiveto the methodologicalproblem,and a challenge tofuturewriting on the Jewishpolitical tradition.

JewishPolitical StudiesReview 6:1-2 (Spring 1994) 9

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10

Alan Mittleman

Weber's Contribution toOur Understanding of Jewish Political Traditions

Max Weber (1864-1920) may seem at first an unlikely con

tributor toward our modern understanding of the political tra

ditions of the Jewish people. A product of the nineteenth century

German university, Weber partook of its many prejudices to

ward and preconceptions about the Jews.While not an antisemite,

neither was Weber a pluralist. He believed that Jewish identity

in the modern world was a traditionalistic anomaly which had

no real place in the German nation-state. The problem of the

Jewish "pariah people," a term he did much to popularize, was

to be solved through radical assimilation. In views such as this,

Weber was of a piece with the entirety of the liberal movement

inWilhelmian Germany.1

In addition to his negative judgment on the viability of

Jewish identity in his own time, Weber drew, in his scholarly

study of ancient Judaism, from the German tradition of "higher

criticism," principally from the work of Julius Wellhausen

and

Eduard Meyer. In our time, the methods and theses of higher

criticism are much in doubt. Weber's indebtedness to this schol

arship circumscribes his contemporary relevance. In its own

epoch, higher criticism was founded on several assumptions

that may properly be labelled anti-Judaic

(though not

antisemitic). Influenced by both classical Christian theology and

its recent secular incarnation, Hegelian immanentist-evolution

ary thought, Wellhausen,

for example, saw in the history of

ancient Israel a proto-evangelium.

Israelite history moved to

ward an anticipation

(by the literary prophets) of an inner

freedom and a moral universalism

fully realized only by Chris

tianity. Israel itself foundered on the narrow shoals of priestly

ritualism and nationalistic

self-centeredness.

The immanent

dynamic of the Israelite spirit, badly misunderstood by Israel

itself, lay dormant until the rise of Christianity. InWellhausen's

source-critical view, the priestly corpus represented by Leviticus

is the last stage in the evolution/devolution

of Israelite religion.

Rabbinic Judaism, denominated

"late Judaism," is a fossilized

extension of the sterile priestly religion into which Judaism had

degenerated.2

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Max Weber's Conception ofCovenant inAncient Judaism

11

Weber inherits these views from the scholars on whom he

relied, yet it cannot be said that he followed them blindly.

Insofar as Weber was explicitly devoted to putting the sociology

of religion on a sound scientific basis, he was alert to the

infiltration of theological or metaphysical

elements.3 To a cer

tain extent, therefore, he succeeded

in freeing himself from

standard theology-driven methodological

assumptions.4 On the

other hand, Weber remains solidly committed towhat we today

denominate as a "hermeneutics of suspicion/' He assumes that

the actual course of Israelite history differs radically from the

narrative presentation of that history in the Bible. He is con

vinced of the basic soundness of source criticism and is confi

dent that P, for example, is the latest stage in the redactional

process. Weber buttresses this assumption by his own formi

dable theory of rationalization. While this assumption

is not

necessarily anti-Judaic, it does imply a notion of increasing

rigidity and decline. Weber does not free himself from such

views.

What then can Weber contribute to an understanding

of

Jewish political tradition? His contribution is three-fold: sub

stantive, methodological,

and cautionary. Both his theses, his

sociological approach, and his limits are instructive.

Substantively, Weber was the first modern scholar to work

out the implications of a concept of covenant rooted in socio

political rather than strictly theological categories. Weber's

posthumous classic, Das antike Judentum (1921), had a profound

impact on the development of subsequent German Bible schol

arship. Influenced by Weber, the works of Albrecht Alt and

Martin Noth came to shape the research of American scholars

such as William Foxwell Albright and George Mendenhall.

Our

modern understanding of covenant as the form of the Israelite

polity is directly indebted toWeber's interpretation.5 This inter

pretation, with references to Judges, is explored in greater detail

below.

Weber's substantive appreciation of covenant follows from

hismethodology. Methodologically, all subsequent sociologists

of religion are, more or less, inWeber's debt. Here we briefly

review some of the methodological

aspects of his sociology of

religion, his thesis on covenant, and some points of Julius

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12

AlanMittleman

Guttmann's critique ofWeber which illustrate the problems and

the limitsof a highly political reading of biblical texts.

An "Understanding" (Verstehende) Sociology

Weber was a practitioner of what has been called

ogy of knowledge. He learned from Marx to implicate of ideas in a network ofmaterial factors.6 Unlike Marx,

the sociol the world however,

Weber did not believe that material factors caused constellations

of ideas and values in a straightforward manner. The ideational

sphere is not, inWeber's thought, simply an expression of the

play of material interests. Neither is it ever the case that reli

gious ideas alone determine the historical process, as a typical

misunderstanding

of Weber's thesis on Puritanism and the rise

of capitalism would have it. The interrelation of ideas and

material factors ismore problematic.

To start, Weber rejects Marx's monocausal

emphasis on the

determinative

force of economic factors. He faults Marx for

failing to distinguish between an idea being caused by economic

forces and economic forces being relevant to the progress of an

idea. InWeber's celebrated thesis on the Puritan ethic, capital

ism is not caused by Puritanism. Puritanism is, rather, relevant

as a factor among factors in the development

of the type of

mentality which was able to rationalize the organization

of

production.

Weber ismore concerned to study the interrelatedness of all

spheres of social life: economic, political, religious, technologi

cal, aesthetic, military, legal and ideational, than he is to privi

lege any of them.All of these orders are linked in relations of

causation, expression, and affinity. Unlike Marx, Weber rejects

historical necessity as an illicit philosophical

concept which

ought to have no role in science. Weber sees a great deal of

accident, arbitrariness, and, of course, uniqueness

in social

reality. Social arrangements do not cause ideas. Rather, arrange

ments and ideas coexist. Ideas and values are often produced by

extraordinary, charismatic individuals for idiosyncratic, unpre

dictable reasons. Once an idea becomes available, social groups,

driven by particular interests,may findan affinitywith itand

institutionalize

it. The chosen idea then becomes an ideology

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Max Weber'sConceptionofCovenantinAncientJudaism 13

which endures to the extent that it enables its bearers to survive

and succeed. As we shall see, covenant Weber.

is just such an idea for

Verstehende sociology has as its purpose to understand the

ideas and values of historical groups as they themselves under

stand them. This emphasis on empathy was a legacy of the

German historicist tradition. By affirming Verstehen, Weber

rejects Marxism's

claim to objective knowledge of the meaning

of historical events. Objective meaning construed against an

essentially metaphysical

construction of the process of history is

an illicit notion forWeber. What can be understood objectively,

indeed what must be understood objectively (for science re

quires objectivity) is how historical agents themselves under

stood or defined their situation. What did the values of a group

mean to the group? Why did they choose these values and not

others?How did these values effectempirical reality?Did the

subjects who chose them act rationally, i.e., consistently, ac

cording to them? At a higher level of abstraction, Weber asks,

what would

like?

ideal, rational behavior according

to x values be

Using an abstract standard of ideal rational congruence with some set of values, Weber derives the heuristic concept of an

"ideal type." Ideal types (e.g., capitalism, Christianity, asceti cism, salvation, charisma) are generalizing concepts which en able us to talk comparatively and abstractly about the brute,

infinite particularity of empirical reality. Unlike the historicists,

Weber, while respecting the unique irreplacability of human events, does not believe that empathy alone suffices to grasp their meaning. Sociology is not an imaginative hermeneutics by which we reexperience (Dilthey's Nachdenken) the Erlebnis of others. Sociology, rather, discerns amid the flux of human events an underlying lawful structure. This structure is de

scribed by postulating ideal types.

Ideal types may be compared to the grammar of a language. No one ever speaks a language entirely in accordance with the norms of grammar. Yet grammar, in all its abstractness, de

sslcatrrrliuybce,tsurideaessal?wetlylcpleasrai?sfypwrethshceenrifboeraspmpsliheodofwrattaioonhlaualnmitgayunageirmelpafltiuiconitncstioinnasan.7dculstSouimcrieai.l Weber believed that human beings in society often acted ratio

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14

Alan Mittleman

nally, i.e., consistently within a given framework of ideas and

values. Insofar as the researcher can rationally explore the

rational action of his subjects, verstehende sociology is a strictly

scientific inquiry.

There are, however, two great irrationalities at the margins

of scientific praxis. One is the researcher's choice of data. That,

Weber granted, is governed by subjective preference.8 But after

that choice is made, science is "value-free." The other field of

irrationality has more radical consequences. Weber believed

that all values are essentially ungrounded, human construc

tions. The universe itself is meaningless.

Religion arises in

response tomeaningless

suffering. Humans do not wrest mean

ing from the universe, they ascribe sense and intelligibility (Sinn

und Bedeutung) to the meaningless

infinity of events.9 Neutral

with respect to such axiological

commitments,

the scientist

looks upon this irrational process of sense-making and traces its

rational consequences.

The view that theworld is in semeaningless, Weber terms the

"disenchantment of theworld." Disenchantment

is the correlate

of rationalization, by which Weber implies an increasing coher

ence and consistency of ideas, associated with an increasing

systematization of institutions. Rationalization

is promoted by

the intellectual strata of cultures such as Confucian mandarins

or biblical prophets. Opposing rationalization

is charisma, the

characteristic of extraordinary personal authority associated

with uniquely powerful individuals. Charisma often introduces

discontinuity into rational procedures. Just as often, eruptions

of charisma are institutionalized and hence rationalized. Where

rationalization

progresses, belief in the adventitious,

spirit

animated character of the world and confidence in magical

means to manipulate

it diminishes. When an ethical, righteous

God replaces a world of competing spirits or nature divinities,

rational action, i.e., ethics, replaces magic. Only in the West,

under the impact of Israelite monotheism,

did a consistently

anti-magical worldview prevail. InWeber's view, such an ontol

ogy was a necessary (but not a sufficient) condition for the

emergence of capitalism.

Weber's studies of world religions were generated by the

problem of charting the growth of rationalization

in relevant

cultures of the East and West.10 Given the historical prevalence

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Max Weber's Conception ofCovenant inAncient Judaism

15

of rationalization/disenchantment,

why did capitalism only

arise to an advanced degree in theWest? What factors in China

and India inhibited the growth of economic rationality? These economic concerns stimulated/ but did not exhaust, Weber's

interest inworld religions.

Thus Weber's specific interest in Judaism stems from his

conviction that only Judaism intuited the complete disenchant

ment and hence the complete rationalization of the world:

The world was conceived [by ancient Judaism] as neither eternal nor unchangeable, but rather as having been created. Its present structures were a product of man's activities,

above all those of the Jews and of God's reactions to them.

Hence the world was an historical product designed to give

way again to the truly God-ordained

order....There existed

in addition a highly rational religious ethic of social conduct;

it was free of magic and all forms of irrational quest for

salvation; itwas inwardly worlds apart from the paths of

salvation offered by Asian religions. To a large extent this

ethic still underlies contemporary Mid Eastern and Euro

pean ethic. World-historical

interest in Jewry rests upon this

fact.11

Unlike the great ancient cultures of the East, the Jews did not

produce: contemplative mystics, but "inner worldly ascetics."

(Contemplative mysticism and inner-worldly asceticism are

ideal types which permit comparative analysis of religious

groups.) The Jews conceived of man as an instrument for purpo

sive action, not as a vessel for salvific, unitive experience. Doing

the divine will through a rationally elaborated system of com

mandments,

rather than ruminating on the meaning of the

universe as a whole, marked Jewish religiosity. "The only prob

lems which could arise were those which were concrete and

topical and concerned action in the world; any other problem

was excluded."12 By "inner-worldly asceticism," Weber implies

a religious type of historically-conscious,

sober, activist piety

centered on fulfillment inhistory and society of divine will. This

formof religiosity, fullyarticulated by theprophets, originates

in thecovenantal thoughtof early Israel at thetimeof thejudges.

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16

Alan Mittleman

The Concept of Covenant

The importance and insight ofWeber's concept of covenant

can best be gained by contrasting itwith Wellhausen's.

In the

latter's view, covenant is a theologically charged metaphor for

Israel's relationship with God.13 A product of prophetic religion,

it is not earlier than the eighth century. Prior to prophecy, God's

relationship with Israel was conceived as a natural bond be

tween father and son. God provides immediate help with things

such as rain, war or oppression, not future salvation or deliver

ance. The prophets shatter this "naturalistic" understanding

of

God, replacing it by a contingent, ethical one. God becomes a

transcendent god of righteousness, rather than a tribal numen.

The relationship of God and Israel is one of divine demand and

human performance. Its conditionality is expressed metaphori

cally in the form of a contract or covenant.

Wellhausen

rejects the historicity of Mosaic/Sinaitic

tradi

tions. Moses, ifhe existed, was probably a leader and judge, on

the model of the shoftim, who promulgated

individual laws in

the form of God's oracular guidance. The presentation of this

guidance as a great corpus of law, deriving once and for all from

Sinai, was a prophetic innovation designed to illustrate the

absolute otherness and transcendence of a righteous god. The

ethical relation this god required awakened, as it were, an

antithesis within the thesis of "naturalistic," tribalistic Israel.

Not until Christianity was a synthesis, inwhich ethical univer

salism triumphs, achieved.

Weber decisively rejects this strictly theological concept of

covenant. For him, by contrast, Israel has its origins in covenant

(brith). Israel both develops and acquires its peculiar character

as an "oath-bound confederation"

through negotiated agree

ments between sub-groups and through an overall agreement

with YHVH. The "inner political history of Israel developed

through ever-repeated

ritualistic confederate resolutions."14

Weber believed that individual tribes such as Judah formed

through agreements between various ethnic and status groups,15 that kings were accepted through covenanting, that Deuteronomy was accepted as a Yahwistic constitution by the polity through

covenant, and that the procedure of covenanting carried Israel

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